7 MOST RECENT PROJECTS - LAST UPDATED MAY 2008
 

1: WHY ARE SO MANY STRATEGIES FLAWED?: We have observed that many companies develop and plan to implement strategies that are unlikely to succeed. Sometimes these are not implemented. Other times they lead to significant failures. We want to understand the root causes and find out if there are any simple cures. Since most managers have some education in strategy and are supported by strategy experts or consultants for most tricky decisions - it is odd that the quality of many strategies is still low.

2: DEVELOPING INTO NEW BUSINESSES: This project focused on companies looking for new growth opportunities because of slow growth in their core markets. It involved shadowing 10 companies, assembling a database of 50 success stories and surveying 100 corporate venturing units. Publications include "The Growth Gamble: When leaders should bet big on new businesses - and how they can avoid expensive failures" by Andrew Campbell and Robert Park. "Stop Kissing Frogs", Harvard Business Review 2004 and "The Future of Corporate Venturing", Sloan Management Review 2003.
  3: DESIGNING COMPLEX ORGANISATIONS: This project examined the parenting challenges of organisations with complex matrix structures.  It concluded that the parenting concept is still valuable even in organisatoins where the line between the "parent" and the "businesses" is hard to draw.  The project also involved understanding both the rationale for creating complex organisations and how managers can improve their structural designs.  A book "Designing Effective Organisations:  How to Create Structured Networks" by Michael Goold and Andrew Campbell is published by Wiley and Jossey-Bass, 2002.  An article was published in the Harvard Business Review, "Do you have a well-designed organisation?" .
  4: THE E-ENABLE CORPORATE CENTRE: This project looked at the impact of electronic technologies on the corporate centre.  The outcome was a joint publication with PricewaterhouseCoopers titled "Creating the E-Corporate Centre" by David Pettifer, Andrew Campbell and Lucy Dennett.
 
5: SYNERGY (LINKS AMONG BUSINESS UNITS): This project has looked at the lateral relationships in organisations between business units and, in particular, the efforts by corporate parents to create synergy by stimulating coordination, skill sharing and other cross-unit initiatives. The project developed a categorisation of 5 types of links - know-how sharing, tangible resource sharing, pooled bargaining power, vertical integration, strategic coordination and combined new business development.
The main conclusion from the project was that managers, particularly corporate-level managers, are biased in their thinking about synergy which makes them too ambitious or over enthusiastic. The solution is a dose of realism helped by "sizing the prize", "pinpointing the parenting opportunities", "building on skills" and "assessing the downsides".
The work has been published in two books: "Synergy! Why Links Between Business Units often fail and how to make them work", Andrew Campbell and Michael Goold, Capstone, 1998; "The Collaborative Enterprise", Andrew Campbell and Michael Goold, Perseus Books, 1998 and an article "Desperately Seeking Synergy", Michael Goold and Andrew Campbell, Harvard Business Review, September-October 1998.
 
6: CORPORATE-LEVEL STRATEGY: This project aimed to define what distinguished companies with successful corporate-level strategies from less successful ones. This led to an understanding of what corporate-level strategy is, how it differs form business-level strategy and how companies can set about developing new corporate-level strategies.
The research observed that many companies do not have a corporate-level strategy. All they have is a sum of their business-level strategies.
The research has been widely published. The main book is "Corporate-Level Strategy: Creating Value in the Multibusiness Company", Andrew Campbell, Michael Goold and Marcus Alexander, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994.
A more popular version is "Breakup! Why large companies are worth more dead than alive", David Sadtler, Andrew Campbell and Richard Koch, Capstone, 1997.
The lead articles are "Corporate Strategy: The Quest for Parenting Advantage", Andrew Campbell, Michael Goold and Marcus Alexander, Harvard Business Review, March - April 1995 and "The Value of the Parent Company", Andrew Campbell, Michael Goold & Marcus Alexander, California Management Review, Vol. 38, No.1, Fall 1995.
 
7: BREAKUPS AND SPINOFFS: This project looked at companies that had decided voluntarily to break their business up into smaller pieces by demerging or spinning off parts of the organisation. The work focused on understanding why this resulted in improved performance of the remaining pieces, when managers should consider the strategy and how best to go about it.
The work has been published in "Breakup! Why Large Companies are Worth More Dead Than Alive", Andrew Campbell, David Sadtler and Richard Koch, Capstone Publishing, 1997 and "Breakup: How companies use spin-offs to gain focus & grow strong", David Sadtler, Andrew Campbell and Richard Koch, The Free Press, 1997, US version. Another related publication is "Demerging Organisations: A guide to best practise" by Bill Tate, Financial Times Management, 1999.
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